Almost three decades after Jodi Huisentruit vanished without a trace, newly unsealed court documents have shed fresh light on the investigation into the Iowa news anchor’s haunting disappearance.
On Monday, a 2017 search warrant involving a long-standing person of interest in Huisentruit’s case, John Vansice, was partially unsealed by a judge.
The newly disclosed documents reveal that police put GPS tracking devices on two vehicles belonging to Vansice in March 2017, shortly after he was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury to provide DNA, fingerprints, and palm prints to the FBI.
Investigators have never disclosed what prompted them to track Vansice’s movements and declined to comment on speculation that they were looking for information that may lead them to Huisentruit’s body.
Data from the search warrant shows that Vansice was tracked between March 2-5, 2017, as he drove from Baxter, Iowa, to his home in Phoenix, Arizona, passing through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico on the way.
Only part of the search warrant has been unsealed. A judge ruled in March that a supporting affidavit that contained sensitive details about the investigation – including information about evidence gathered at the crime scene – should remain sealed indefinitely.
Prosecutors and the Huisentruit family had opposed making the contents of the affidavit public, voicing concern that it could harm the 30-year-old investigation, which remains active.
Cerro Gordo County Attorney Carlyle Dalen argued in court last month that releasing the information in the affidavit would taint its ‘corroborative value’ because potential suspects would know ‘what information to hide and what information not to hide.’
The information that has been disclosed appears unremarkable, but it raises new questions about Vansice and why he was being re-examined by police after 22 years.
Jodi Huisentruit’s disappearance continues to haunt Mason City, Iowa, after almost 30 years
John Vansice is one of the only known persons of interest investigated by police
A search warrant was partially unsealed on Monday showing that authorties put GPS trackers on two vehicles owned by Vansice in 2017
Huisentruit, 27, was abducted from the parking lot of her Mason City, Iowa, apartment complex as she made her way to work on June 27, 1995.
Evidence found at the scene pointed to signs of a struggle, but no traces of Huisentruit have been yielded since, and no arrests have ever been made.
Vansice, a friend of Huisentruit’s who was more than 20 years her senior, is one of the only known persons of interest to be identified by Mason City PD.
He landed on investigators’ radar almost instantly after he turned up at the crime scene on the morning Huisentruit was reported missing and told police he was likely the last known person to have seen her alive.
Vansice, who was 49 at the time, denied any wrongdoing but said they’d spent the prior evening together watching a videotape of a surprise birthday party he’d thrown for Huisentruit earlier that month.
Vansice agreed to take a polygraph test a week after Huisentruit vanished and passed.
He also voluntarily supplied DNA, fingerprints, and palmprints.
But despite his cooperation, it appears police have never been able to conclusively rule him out as a suspect.
Grand jury proceedings are confidential, and because the jurors did not vote to indict, the basis for subpoenaing Vansice in 2017 is not clear
In a 2018 interview, Mason City Police Chief Jeff Brinkley told CBS News that investigators didn’t get any useful information from the search warrant on Vansice’s vehicles.
Vansice left Mason City shortly after Huisentruit’s disappearance and stopped taking interviews with the media.
He died in December last year following a battle with Alzheimer’s.
Data from the search warrant shows that Vansice was tracked between March 2-5, 2017, as he drove from Baxter, Iowa, to his home in Phoenix, Arizona
John Vansice denied any involvement in Jodi’s disappearance. He died in December
Jodi had just celebrated her 27th birthday weeks before she disappeared. Vansice claims she went to his apartment the night before to watch a tape he’d filmed from the party
Police were called after Jodi failed to show for work on June 27, 1995, and missed anchoring her morning show DayBreak
The release of the search warrant on Monday came at the behest of Steve Ridge, a private investigator who is independently working the Huisentruit case, who argued in court that Vansice’s death should allow for the warrant to be fully unsealed.
Though only part of the Vansice search warrant has been released, in a statement to The Daily Mail, Ridge called the GPS data ‘extremely valuable’ for his independent probe.
‘I have to be very measured in what I share at this time,’ wrote Ridge. ‘There is some extremely valuable insight in both the unsealed materials and the legal proceedings leading up to today’s release – if one knows precisely what they are looking for.
‘I think we are nearing a point where impaneling a new grand jury would be wise.
‘I have identified a minimum nine people so far that need to be questioned under oath. Multiple people know a great deal about what happened to Jodi.’
Ridge previously told The Daily Mail that he is ’99 percent’ sure he knows who is responsible for Huisentruit’s abduction and suspected murder.
Unconvinced that the partially unsealed warrant holds any evidentiary value is Caroline Lowe, an investigative journalist who helps to run FindJodi.com, a website dedicated to solving the case.
Lowe said: ‘We’re not surprised the affidavit of the search warrant remains sealed, given Jodi Huisentruit’s abduction remains an open case.
‘We also knew from the Mason City Police Chief’s statement in 2018 to CBS News that no useful information was obtained from the GPS tracking.’
During that interview, Chief Brinkley shared that police do have DNA samples and a partial palm print but declined to share what other evidence his department has.
And though Brinkley said the GPS sting ‘didn’t pan out’ as he’d hoped it would, he also refused to comment on whether or not Vansice was still a person of interest.
When asked why police refuse to discuss specific details about their investigation, Brinkley added: ‘I don’t wanna let the cat outta the bag… But I think we’re very close [to a breakthrough].’
Friends and family remembered Jodi as a radiant, warn, and positive force
She was abducted after stepping outside her apartment in Mason City, Iowa, in June 1995
A partial palm print found on Jodi’s car has never been identified
Vansice last spoke about Huisentruit in 2019, breaking years of silence in a statement issued through Ridge in which he ‘emphatically’ denied any involvement in her disappearance and said he’d been living in a ‘suspended hell’ for 25 years.
Before fleeing Mason City amid mounting suspicions, Vansice spoke with the local media on several occasions in the early days and weeks of the Huisentruit search.
Speaking to Huisentruit’s colleagues at KIMT in 1995, Vansice recounted the last time he saw her alive: in his apartment the night before she disappeared, watching the tape of the surprise party he’d thrown for her.
‘We watched the tape and we chuckled, we laughed, we giggled – we hee-hawed,’ Vansice said.
‘She’s laughing the whole time she was there, and she laughed by the time she left.’
Vansice, a seed salesman, befriended Huisentruit in what appeared to be a turbulent time in his life.
He had recently divorced and been ordered to install a breathalyzer device in his van following a series of arrests for drunken driving.
Vansice used to live at the same apartment complex as Huisentruit, but he first met her at a bar after offering to buy her a drink.
Friends of Huisentruit’s have previously speculated that Vansice may have had romantic feelings for the young, blonde anchor that weren’t reciprocated.
Her best friend, Tammy Baker, told The Daily Mail she once questioned Huisentruit about the nature of her and Vansice’s relationship, but the anchor denied any romantic entanglement.
‘I know there was a lot of conjecture about John Vansice and their relationship, and whether he was jealous,’ said Baker.
‘So I asked her at one point, I said, “Are you and John a thing? You’re spending a lot of time together.”
‘And she goes, “Oh no, no, no. We’re just really good friends.” And I asked him the same question. I said, “Are you interested in Jodi?” And he said he thought of her as a daughter, and he wanted to protect her.’
The investigation into Jodi’s disappearance remains active and ongoing
Vansice told the media he saw Huisentruit as being like a daughter to him and denied any romantic interest in her
He previously lived at the same apartment complex as Huisentruit but the pair met when Vansice approached her at a bar and asked to buy her a drink
The watchful protector is how Vansice often summarized his role in her life to the media, describing Huisentruit as being ‘like a daughter’ to him to KIMT.
‘She was just like my own child, I treated her like my own child,’ he said.
Huisentruit’s colleagues Robin Wolfram and Doug Merbach later described Vansice as being ‘too happy and gleeful’ during the segment.
‘He wanted to be interviewed,’ added Merbach.
In a separate interview with 48 Hours, Vansice shared his belief that Huisentruit was still alive and that she ‘wouldn’t want us to sit around at home and cry and sob, she’d want us to be out having fun cause that was her.’
Huisentruit’s friend Ani Kruse, who was being interviewed alongside Vansice, interjected to remind him to speak about her in the present tense.
‘It is her,’ emphasized Kruse. ‘Everything is.’
Correcting himself, Vansice repeated ‘it is her’ twice.
He added that he ‘just loved watching Huisentruit have fun.’
‘I tried to watch over her. I tried to check on her once in a while – not all the time, just once in a while. See how she’s getting along.’
Huisentruit spent the last two weekends of her life with Baker and Vansice, carousing and waterskiing on his boat, which he’d named ‘Jodi’ in her honor.
Baker said she often spent time with the pair but never saw anything in his behavior that gave her cause for concern.
The only odd interaction she could recall came two weeks before the disappearance, when the three were out drinking and an admirer who recognized Huisentruit from TV approached her to dance.
‘She was dancing with that guy, and he was being a little touchy-feely, and John got cranky about that,’ recounted Baker.
‘The guy was being a little forward… so [Vansice] got a bit belligerent, but he wasn’t attacking the guy or screaming, he was just upset about how forward he was being.’
Tammy Baker (right) told Daily Mail she believes a crazed stalker fan abducted Jodi and not Vansice
Kristin Nathe, Jodi’s niece and goddaughter, has urged her aunt’s killer to come forward
Baker is certain Vansice had nothing to do with Huisentruit’s suspected murder.
Amid mounting suspicions, she asked him directly if he was involved, and said she left that conversation convinced of his innocence.
‘He wasn’t someone who sat and plotted,’ said Baker. ‘John was a reactive, spontaneous person.
‘If he wanted to do something to her, he wouldn’t abduct her in front of her building where people knew him because it’s much riskier than going into the woods or doing something out on his boat.’
Aside from Baker, others who knew Huisentruit remain torn over Vansice’s viability as a suspect.
Kruse told CBS in 2020 that, while at the time she was convinced of his innocence, she now believes he could have harmed her.
When asked about his possible motive, she said, ‘Maybe being rebuffed.’
‘That’s the only thing I could think of… But the thing that has always puzzled me, like, why in the morning in the parking lot?’
Huisentruit’s sister, JoAnn Nathe, has also been vocal in the past about her suspicions of Vansice, believing him to be ‘obsessed’ with her younger sibling.
Nathe’s daughter, Kristin Nathe, told The Daily Mail she’s unsure whether her aunt’s abductor could’ve been someone she was close with or a crazed stalker who’d become obsessed by watching her on TV.
‘My brain goes back and forth between the two,’ she said.
‘But [Vansice] is definitely a person of interest, given some of his words and behavior after Jodi disappeared.
‘He’s very suspicious to me, but we have to keep our minds open to the possibility it could be someone else as well.’
Billboards still stand in Mason City in the hope they prompt a memory or lead that lands a long-awaited breakthrough
A handful of other potential suspects have been quietly eyed by police over the years, but no arrests have been made.
Jodi Huisentruit was pronounced legally dead in 2001.
Kristin Nathe said the lack of progress made in the case has been a devastating burden for her family to bear.
However, she still has faith in the authorities to crack the case and bring her beloved aunt’s killer to justice.
She believes Mason City PD is right to continue to safeguard what evidence they have in the case, no matter how big or small.
‘I wouldn’t want any information released publicly that could affect the investigation or affect any sort of justice that we could get,’ shared Kristin.
‘I realize that the window to solve this case is probably closing more rapidly with each passing day, and the longer this case goes on… but I try to remain optimistic, but it’s hard.
‘I just know that I’m never going to be at peace until we find her and we find out what happened to her.’
As her family’s wait for answers continues with no immediate end in sight, Kristin offered an impassioned plea to her aunt’s killer, urging them to do the right thing and end her suffering.
‘Please don’t make us continue to have to wait for answers on where Jodi is and what happened to her,’ she said.
‘We’ve existed in this nightmare for too long, so find compassion in your heart to help us find the peace that we and Jodi desperately need.’
